Gothic

Marge Simon has an excellent atmospheric, gothic piece in BloodRoseMag [2005], "Phantom" here:

Maybe to find you
in the gathering dusk,
[...]
before the thing happened
that refuses to be remembered
[...]
on my trembling hands,
maybe to find you
[...]

James Wright

The American poet James Wright's [1927-1980]  piece "A lazy poem on Saturday Evening" [1961] is excellent, read it all here:

[...]
As they follow solitary people down paths.
I lie back in the grass, shameless,
And surrender to that voice.
My bare forearms are wet
With dew.

Rauan Klassnik

Klassnik's book of poetry 'Holy Land' is very surrealist, wild, passionately dark and gothic [like early gothic literature or HBO's tv series True Detective [season 1], here are some excerpts, and be sure to read his three poems at Paragraphiti here [2014, Jan.], ie here's the end of 'The Blur':
[...]
It blurs at my face. And blurs my neck. Blurs at fish, blowing round us, in a cold, marble forest.

Other interesting excerpts of his work include:

[...]
I’m on a cloud floating by and I’ve gone mad but madness flows away in a tall shining work of Art and I’m standing in front of a fountain and the world’s ringing down through me and there are no fields of migrants mixing hair and bone into concrete. Trucks lined up and ready. Cups of cold coffee, a Rolex and a crucifix. A girl on a payphone begging.
[...]

Another:
[...]
God breathes in your mouth and licks between your toes till your eyes roll back. Then he takes away the chair and black flowers spike.
[...]
Drifting in the pool with the light shimmering dark all around them these red pods look like spent shotgun shells. You leaned down and bit my chest and you told me I was filled with suffering: “I bow down to it and lick its feet,” you said. My God, it was all so simple
[...]

Elline Lipkin

This poem 'La Sorcière' by Elline Lipkin is featured at WeirdSister here [2016, Jan.], and it's excellent:

      It curls,                           a thin slice of dun moon, its pressed lips                           un-made-up against the stars’ hoyden brass.

[...]

   Then pairs,                          two cards pulled side by side from the arcana,

[...]

Marisa Crawford

Crawford's piece 'Kozmic Blues' is excellent, over at TheFanzine here [2013], she has a great voice that is incisive and yet lyrically beautiful--modern poetry rarely has the intrinsic beauty necessary for the art:
[...]
Violet crushed-velvet skirt like I was following a trail somewhere.
[...]
My ball & chain.
The rhinestones. The rain.
I was swimming in it.
[...]

And the poem 'People Power' by Marisa Crawford in Moonshot issue 5 [2013] is excellent, read it here:

[...]
I'm sorry to the giant antique urn. I'm sorry to the magic.

That every single day I obscure by floating above the sidewalk in
all black like a ghost on my way to buy the earrings.
[...]

Roses

THE ROSE AND THE GRAVE. by famous French writer Victor Hugo [read more here]

     ("La tombe dit à la rose.")

     {XXXI., June 3, 1837}

     The Grave said to the rose
       "What of the dews of dawn,
     Love's flower, what end is theirs?"
       "And what of spirits flown,
     The souls whereon doth close
       The tomb's mouth unawares?"
     The Rose said to the Grave.

     The Rose said: "In the shade
     From the dawn's tears is made
     A perfume faint and strange,
       Amber and honey sweet."
       "And all the spirits fleet
     Do suffer a sky-change,
       More strangely than the dew,
       To God's own angels new,"
     The Grave said to the Rose.

     A. LANG.

Victor Hugo

Read more of French novelist and poet Victor Hugo's [1802-1885] work here.

TO ALBERT DÜRER.

     ("Dans les vieilles forêts.")

     {X., April 20, 1837.}

     Through ancient forests—where like flowing tide
     The rising sap shoots vigor far and wide,
     Mounting the column of the alder dark
     And silv'ring o'er the birch's shining bark—
     Hast thou not often, Albert Dürer, strayed
     Pond'ring, awe-stricken—through the half-lit glade,
     Pallid and trembling—glancing not behind
     From mystic fear that did thy senses bind,
     Yet made thee hasten with unsteady pace?
     Oh, Master grave! whose musings lone we trace
     Throughout thy works we look on reverently.
     Amidst the gloomy umbrage thy mind's eye
     Saw clearly, 'mong the shadows soft yet deep,
     The web-toed faun, and Pan the green-eyed peep,
     Who deck'd with flowers the cave where thou might'st rest,
     Leaf-laden dryads, too, in verdure drest.
     A strange weird world such forest was to thee,
     Where mingled truth and dreams in mystery;
     There leaned old ruminating pines, and there
     The giant elms, whose boughs deformed and bare
     A hundred rough and crooked elbows made;
     And in this sombre group the wind had swayed,
     Nor life—nor death—but life in death seemed found.
     The cresses drink—the water flows—and round
     Upon the slopes the mountain rowans meet,
     And 'neath the brushwood plant their gnarled feet,
     Intwining slowly where the creepers twine.
     There, too, the lakes as mirrors brightly shine,
     And show the swan-necked flowers, each line by line.
     Chimeras roused take stranger shapes for thee,
     The glittering scales of mailèd throat we see,
     And claws tight pressed on huge old knotted tree;
     While from a cavern dim the bright eyes glare.
     Oh, vegetation! Spirit! Do we dare
     Question of matter, and of forces found
     'Neath a rude skin-in living verdure bound.
     Oh, Master—I, like thee, have wandered oft
     Where mighty trees made arches high aloft,
     But ever with a consciousness of strife,
     A surging struggle of the inner life.
     Ever the trembling of the grass I say,
     And the boughs rocking as the breezes play,
     Have stirred deep thoughts in a bewild'ring way.
     Oh, God! alone Great Witness of all deeds,
     Of thoughts and acts, and all our human needs,
     God only knows how often in such scenes
     Of savage beauty under leafy screens,
     I've felt the mighty oaks had spirit dower—
     Like me knew mirth and sorrow—sentient power,
     And whisp'ring each to each in twilight dim,
     Had hearts that beat—and owned a soul from Him!

     MRS. NEWTON CROSLAND

Death

Quote from English poet A.C. Swinburne's [1837-1909] "A Ballad of Death":

[...]

Kings bowed themselves and shed 

Pale wine, and honey with the honeycomb, 

And spikenard bruised for a burnt-offering; 

Even she between whose lips the kiss became 

As fire and frankincense; 

Whose hair was as gold raiment on a king, 

Whose eyes were as the morning purged with flame, 

Whose eyelids as sweet savour issuing thence.

[...]

Short reads

For short reads, check out wildly different blogs, ie:
The magic/esoteric/pagan blog RuneSoup
The Murch country life/homeschool blog or ThyHandHathProvided country/cooking blog

And pinterest/tumblrs blogs centered on books are interesting, ie: Fyeah DaenerysTargaryen